In recent years, having an online presence has become essential to running a business. Understanding how to navigate the tricky sphere of search engines and competitive rankings, however, isn’t an easy thing to jump into.
Chances are, you’ve probably got a range of different questions and queries about how this world of search engine-sourced traffic works. What are SERPs? How can you get your business to the top of the Google results page? What are the different categories of places your business pages could pop up in? We seek to answer all this and more in our easy, beginner’s guide to SERPs.
This blog provides basic information on what a SERP is, detailing the different parts of its anatomy and where your business fits into the big picture. For personalized digital marketing advice, contact Digital Edge International today.
What is a SERP?
SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. Essentially, this is the page that loads up whenever you enter a search into an engine such as Google. Your keywords generate a ranked list of results, but it isn’t as simple as just the most popular of website pages coming up based on what you’ve submitted into the engine. A SERP may contain sponsored ads, links, maps, and a variety of other algorithms and categories of results that can be a little more difficult to understand as a novice. So, let’s break down the different sections you may see within a SERP.
Paid Ads
Paid search ads come in a variety of different styles. While you may have historically found ads popping up along the sides of the results page, nowadays the most common spot to find a sponsored search result is the very top of a SERP. Often the first few results on the search page will be paid ads, which can come in the form of images or plain text. How these ads essentially work is that a business will purchase these slots in a pay-per-click format. The more popular and competitive a keyword is, the higher the price will be to pay for your business to gain one of these highly sought-after spots.
Ads are placed based on their quality, bid price, and their relevancy to the submitted keywords. Sometimes, for highly competitive keywords, you may find more and more of the SERP filled up with paid ad spots. In these scenarios, it’s hard for unpaid results to rank highly and garner attention from online traffic.
Local Search Results
When you look up specific services and businesses, one thing you may notice consistently appearing on your SERP is location-specific suggestions. For example, when you google dental services, chances are at the top of the results page will be a map of your local area highlighting all the nearby dentists that match your search criteria. These are your local search results – typically offering lists of providers, maps, opening hours, and key contact information for businesses within a certain search radius. This radius may be determined by a location submitted in the keywords, or else search engines will use location services to determine where the user is searching from to suggest local options.
If you’re a local business, these location-based search results can be essential to your growth and development. Setting up a Google business page can take time, but providing photos of your business, locations, hours of operation, contact details, reviews, and other key details can draw in countless more customers. It’s a marketing opportunity that cannot go unmissed. Rather than stressing over how to manipulate the SERP to get your business ranking organically, getting set up for local search results keeps your business relevant and visible to your target audience.
Organic Search Results
Now, beyond paid ads and location-based prompts, a SERP will offer a variety of pages that are ranked based on popularity and relevancy to the keywords searched. Ensuring that your business’ website optimizes search engine results by using a variety of keywords customers may search for is one thing, but creating easy to navigate and user-friendly content is just as important. SERPs don’t link to entire websites, they suggest specific pages.
Ensuring that you’re creating hyper-specific, relevant, and search-worthy pages for each of your services will help to ensure that your business organically pops up in ranking for a wide range of searches. You want to start by answering the questions your target audience will be asking, and from there traffic will naturally be drawn to your pages, and you’ll start to climb the SERP rankings.
Contact Digital Edge to Get Your Business Climbing SERP Ranks Today
Navigating the search engine results page isn’t an easy task. In today’s modern marketing climate, however, ensuring that your business is making the most of the search results ranking is absolutely vital for your growth. That said – learning the tips and tricks doesn’t have to be something you do alone.
When you partner with Digital Edge, you’re working with a team of SERP experts you understand how to best optimize your position on search results pages. Whether you’re looking to find paid ad slots for certain keywords, set your business up for local searches, or maximize your organic rankings, as the Digital Marketing Agency Nashville, we have the expertise and insider knowledge necessary to help you flourish. Reach out today to find out how we can be helping to grow your business.
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